How to Navigate Airports with Kids: Holiday Travel Tips

Flying with kids is tough enough, but during the winter holidays, jam-packed airports and delayed flights can conspire to make a parent’s job even harder. Here are some tips that will help smooth your journey.

Flying with kids is tough enough, but during the winter holidays, jam-packed airports and delayed flights can conspire to make a parent’s job even harder. Here are some tips that will help smooth your journey.

Find a Play Zone

Even if your airport doesn’t have a year-round playground, airports sometimes set up seasonal activities or art exhibits during the holidays. Once you have cleared security, ask at an information desk about play areas and special services available for the holiday rush. Once you've found one, you'll leave one parent in the play zone with the kids while the other runs reconnaissance gathering snacks, bottled water, and whatever else you want for your flight.

Allow extra time

Crowded freeways, full parking lots, and long security lines can feel like they’re conspiring to make you miss your flight. Your kids are so frazzled by the time they get to the airport that they melt down long before you make it to your gate (especially if this is their first flight), and the bustling food court makes it tricky to get them the snack they so desperately need. Allow yourself an hour longer than you'd normally need, and your kids might even get a chance to run (or jump) off some energy before your flight boards.

Find the Family Lane

If your airport has more than one security checkpoint, ask which one has a “family lane.” Family lanes generally skip past the longest part of the security line, and TSA agents sometimes have stickers to give kids after they pass through the metal detector. Keep in mind that kids aged 12 and under do not need to remove their shoes at the security checkpoint, and that kids too young to hold still never need to go through the scanners.

Send Gifts Ahead

I'm of the opinion that lightening your baggage is the best way to make sure your marriage is still healthy when you return home. If you are packing gifts for your kids or other family members, that extra bulk in your luggage can really wear you out. Instead, consider ordering gifts online and having them sent directly to your destination (most hotels will hold packages for your arrival). Barring that, look for easily packable gifts. Just remember to allow extra space in your luggage to bring home gifts you receive.

Pack Extra Activities and Charge Your Batteries

Flight delays may mean that your kids exhaust their busy bag activities before your travel is completed. To avoid a mid-flight meltdown, bring along more than you think you'll need, and then study up finger rhymes, hand-clapping games and card games. (This same advice holds for baby food and diapers, neither of which can be easily replenished in an airport shop). Relying on electronics to keep the kids entertained? Be sure your batteries are fully charged before you leave home, and don't forget to put any chargers in your carry-on bag for a quick top-up at the airport.

Stay Healthy

Mix a crowded airport full of people just at the beginning of flu season with a run-down family and you have a sure recipe for sickness on the flight home. Take the time to wash hands, keep kids well hydrated, eat healthy snacks, and get enough rest so that you don’t get sick too. The fees for changing your flight due to illness can be shocking, and no parent wants to be in the position of dragging a sick child on an airplane.